librettooflife

[librettooflife]

Tenet

Similar to Inception, the movie is a dream / psychological projection from an old man with regrets.

In this case, the “dreamer” is a physicist, likely American, that has stolen plutonium and sold it on the black market for $. In the process they have estranged their wife and child. Basically, Sator’s character in the movie is the “real” dreamer, with some modifications (likely not Russian).

The “protagonist” represents the alternate life the dreamer could have had but didn’t. He represents someone who cares, who values life, who wouldn’t “hold a woman/child hostage”, and most importantly...has beliefs. Sator doesn’t have any tenets (beliefs), the protagonist does.

Rationale:

1 The SATOR square. What are the odds you have people in the movie named Sator, Opera, Arepo, Rotas? 0. It’s a construction from someone’s mind, that mind is the dreamer.

2 Dreamlike instances the protagonist is “saved”. After biting the suicide pill, dying in a car. Just wakes up seemingly unharmed. This is what happens in dreams. Other dreamlike things like the “cavalry” just showing up, a large battle scene with the “good guys” of some unknown force(?) battling another private force? Protag just walks into the female scientist’s “lab” in the middle of an office building? Where she is demonstrating time traveling bullets? Does that sound realistic to you? And the “detritus of a coming war” is just a lot of junk, it’s completely meaningless. But the actual location looks like something to store mundane objects, maybe at a university?

3 The blue / red. The blue is all over the background of the movie in innocuous places. On the walls, chairs, paint. It’s a reminder that this world is constructed.

4 The protagonist’s name is just “the protagonist”. I mean...come on...

5 Sator shouldn’t know anything about nukes. He was a kid and supposedly found “gold” then just kept finding gold. How would he die of cancer from radiation then, or as the wife says “have countries fight over him”, know about nuke containment (when talking with protag)? He just gets instant gold, not nukes, right? The gold is just allegorical to the dreamer. In reality, the dreamer is selling plutonium for gold. That’s why in the dream he opens up the container and finds gold.

6 Sator and Protag are opposites. Sator gets gold, protag ignores gold (in plane) to help the wife. He doesn’t care about money, Sator obsessed with it. In the end, protag’s life is saved by being dragged by Neil. Sator’s life is ended by wife and dragged behind boat.

7 The characters are all named after physicists, and in the dream Neil knows about the Feynman theory. The female scientist at the beginning is clearly in a lecture hall with the board going through physics. This is a memory of the dreamer. Notice the phone and TV in her “lab”, they are very dated from the 1960s. This is when the dreamer (in real life) gave physics lectures as they were likely a physics professor. Clearly the dreamer worked in physics.

8 The Pentagon of the Freeport is clearly modeled after the Pentagon. The dreamer actually worked there. And the scene where they broke in, had to hold their breath? Might be a stretch but an allegory of how he had to “hold his breath” / hold his tongue to get further and further into the Defense Dept. Allegory. Then he’s confronted in the middle with a red door / blue door. He chooses the blue door and eventually selling plutonium. But he would have wanted to choose the red door and choosing the life of the protagonist. He even fights with himself.

9 Furniture from Priya (an arms dealer, which is what the dreamer sees themselves as) is very dated, from the 1970s(?) Dreamer spent time there in the 1970s, that’s from their memory.

10 “Cold War”, red/blue, “nuclear annihilation”, Russians, Vietnam mentioned throughout the movie. That’s because the dreamer lived through all this, but never had any strong beliefs/tenets. Just cared about money.

11 The wearing of the masks isn’t real, it’s just bringing the fact that he wears an oxygen mask due to his cancer.

12 He’s likely dying of cancer in real life. Been dealing with radioactive materials and got pancreatic cancer as Sator did. He’s in the “twilight” now per Walt Whitman (as the protagonist alludes to), in between life and death. Perhaps in a coma as Fay tells Protagonist.

The movie is a projection about how the dreamer spent their life (selling plutonium after the collapse of the USSR for $) horribly, and wants to go back in time. But he’s in conflict with himself, and in the “twilight” of his years, wants to do things differently; living as the protagonist. Caring about art, about people, not about money or power. Caring about wind power and not wrecking the environment. A different path for himself as well as humanity in general.

And the wife / child (who is Neil from the future) save the protagonist, whereas Sator’s abuse causes his death at her hand. Even so, the dreamer thinks the optimal thing would be to just let them be from “afar”; he knows he is too toxic and the best thing would be to not have a relationship with either of them. Hence the protagonist watches them both from the car. He knows that even his “optimal” self will not be good enough for either of them.

All in all, the movie is about duality, conflict between (red/blue); the actual countries don’t even matter. Because for him, the conflict was between having beliefs and believing nothing except yourself. About opposites coming in to conflict with each other with the veneer of physics/sordid plutonium sales fueling his guilt. “What’s happened, happened”. He knows he can’t change the past, but in his last(?) dream, he wants to think that it could be different this time. He wants to try.

[librettooflife]

Review: Mad Max Fury Road

Grade: C-

Nice (but repetitive) visuals, no plot, no character development.

This gets a 97% Rotten Tomatoes? Why?

Why did Nox help Max/Furiosa? This kid has been brainwashed since birth, but with no external event starts helping them, even giving his life for them. STUPID. Better to see Joe BETRAY NOX, multiple times, for him to get it. And add in some love for the redhead, which was poorly done.

Why do we assume this ends happily? Not all of the Joe’s war party was destroyed, why won’t they just kill Furiosa when they return?

What about the heirs of the bullet farmers/gas refinery peeps? They were all brothers (?) with Joe, why would they not remove Furiosa by force? She has the support of no one (except the people, which counts for nothing).

The women were vapid and gratuitous. The shot where they are washing in the shower when Max sees them...out of some soft-core porn. Why not save women that were ordinary, why only save the pretty ones? And how are they getting makeup in the middle of this apocalypse? Seems really really stupid.

How did the older women out in the desert survive? Didn’t see any food, any water out there.

Max had a couple of lines, and seemed like a dumb mute for most of the movie. When does this take place in relation to Road Warrior? Mel Gibson’s character was intelligent (if brutal), Hardy’s Max alternates between animalistic stupidity and some amount of reason.

There is no character arc for anyone, they stay exactly the same. No one learned anything, no one changed...except Nox, whose change to supporting Max/Furiosa is inexplicable.

Dumb 100% all action movie, no humanity, no emotion. Seems more like a nature video of the Australian outback with some action scenes compared to anything else.

[librettooflife]

Meaning of Westworld

Spoilers...

Preliminary since I haven’t seen all the episodes, but at this point my theory is that Westworld is actually purgatory, with the lower levels being Hell.

Why?

When the 2 techs find the stray (that bashes his own head in), there are no stars in the background. The security guy tells her to “look at the stars” as he chops off the head, but she looks to the side.

We don’t see any real scene outside of the world of Westworld.

“Newcomers” come in to Westworld, but we don’t see them leaving.

Newcomers can choose a white hat or black hat.

No real world indication of how people board the train to Westworld, only that they are on the train.

Lower levels of the science facility are reminiscent of lower levels of Dante’s inferno, the 9th level being that of ice. How fitting that the “robots” are immobile for all time there.

Reality distortions, like Teddy’s bullets damaging the wagon, or others that can break bottles, but can’t damage people? How can that be?

Unusual comings and goings: 2 techs board an elevator to go to the surface, but we never see it on surface. Anthony Hopkins’ character also takes an elevator to the surface, but then can’t find it. He then seemingly meets a younger version of himself (where their fathers “say the same thing”, is British, etc.)

Hopkins’ new narrative is about the fact that Wyatt Earp is in between “man and the Devil”, and the land is for neither the settlers nor the Natives.

Frequent comments about “prison”, “demons”, etc.

Also, the narrative writer makes a comment about how he is outdoing Hieronymus Bosch, the painter who painted Purgatory and Hell.

"These violent delights, have violent ends" . From Shakespeare, spoken by a friar...about the fact that quick, violent love will end just as violently. Could also mean that the lust (vs. love) will end up being punished...in Hell.

The “robots” aren’t robots at all, they are condemned souls.

[librettooflife]

Movie Review: Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier

Grade: A-

Subversive movie masquerading as a tentpole? Kudos.

Better late than never...

The Captain America movies are some of the deepest among the Marvel franchise. Captain America 2 is a solid thriller, with great action and well-defined character arcs and plot points.

The thing that makes the movie shine, though, is the subversion laced throughout the movie. The subversion is that those that desire control (Hydra) are laced inside government and more specifically, the intelligence communities. Online information is used by the Hydra algorithm to target “undesirables”: those that would question the new Hydra order.

How well the movie covers recent real events like the ongoing NSA spying of our emails, FB posts, twitter, and phone metadata. To Hydra, it’s all for the “greater good” of “security”, but at the cost of freedom. How many NSA employees would happily parrot Redford’s chilling and seductions? A great many.

As Nick Fury tries to salvage Shield, Rogers correctly decides that it all needs to go: the power is too great for any agency, no matter how well intentioned. The 3rd Act is spent destroying these instruments of surveillance and control.

It’s rare that you see any meaningful subtext in movies, and rarer still to do it successfully. While Abrams and Tarantino handle race relations stupidly and ham-handedly, Captain America 2 does it deftly, as the side of Hydra is presented with some real-world examples. Redford’s character respects Fury, but still wants him dead anyway because he gets in his way.

In the end, the friendship of Rogers and Barnes shines through, some real humanity missing in a good many movies. Rogers loyalty as he is getting beaten by Barnes really shows the depth of his care for Barnes, which ends up snapping Barnes out of his stupor (partially at least). Self-sacrifice, but meaningful.

Falcon character was also well done as a character in his own right; not a sidekick at all. Rogers and Falcon respect each other as people and as fellow soldiers, as is evidenced by their talk at the VA. Rogers just clearly has abilities above that of Falcon, which Falcon can freely admit (refreshing as well).

A well done movie.

[librettooflife]

Star Wars Rogue One Review

Grade: C

A bland and emotionless tale to retcon small elements of “A New Hope”.

Poor characterization and no discernible character arcs, mish-mosh story that was all over the place.

Problems: Absolutely no acting skill from Felicity Jones. No humor, no pain, no sadness, no fear. Just an emotionless, expressionless robot (ironic that the robot actually expressed more emotion than any human in the movie).

Major plot issues:

1 Krennic knows Galen Erso has a daughter, they don’t search for her? They would clearly want to find her as leverage to get Galen to work for them; so they wait like 10 minutes and give up? And BTW, how does a 5-6yo girl manage to run away without leaving any tracks? No heat signature? Stupid.

2 Why doesn’t Saw Gerrera and the blind dude / buddy join up? They’re on the same planet, both fighting the Empire. This city is that large that they don’t ever meet or know each other?

3 She takes some time climbing up the tower to get to her father. After the attack, she simply walks across some rocks and is at the ship.

4 There aren’t any guards inside that would take shelter inside the building? Why wouldn’t they shoot at anyone, at least after the bombing?

5 Jyn says that her father was killed by Alliance bombs to Cassian, which is true. So why go on a mission to help the Alliance 30 seconds later? You just told Saw Gerrera you don’t care about the Alliance or the Empire, you don’t care about the flag as long as you don’t look up. So why try and steal the plans of her father for the Alliance that JUST KILLED HIM? If anything she should work for the Empire to kill the organization that killed her father.

6 Why is Crennic climbing up this satellite tower solo to go after Jyn / Cassian? He has countless troops at his disposal as Director of a military base, seems pretty dumb for the Director to go up to the top of the tower solo against people he knows are armed.

7 Why is Saw Gerrera “too extreme”? Doesn’t seem to do anything every member of the Alliance is trying to do. 

A few suggestions would make the movie better:

Cut out that Gerrera is “too extreme”, completely extraneous. He lost Jyn because he was being tracked by the Empire, and didn’t want her to die so had to leave her somewhere (flashback). But he’s been looking for her ever since. Gerrera is the one that found her and orchestrated her release after the cargo pilot finds him. It’s too coincidental that she happens to be there at the same time that the message is playing from her father. Here’s what the order should be:

Galen Erso had a fake cemetary plot of his daughter made so Krennic doesn’t look for her

Small scene of cargo pilot escaping

Rescue Jyn from jail.

Jyn goes to Gerrera.

Gerrera needs a password from Jyn to play Galen’s message; it was “Stardust” or whatever it was in the movie. This plays the message.

Jyn is reluctant, doesn’t care, is blase about Gerrera and her father.

Her father in the message says he always loved her, he had to do what he did to keep her alive. He also reveals that Krennic recently discovered that Jyn is alive (shot of stormtroopers disturbing the empty fake grave of Jyn), so Krennic is looking for her and will eventually find her. That’s why he was desperate to have the cargo pilot deliver the message. She tears up, but is still angry at the dual abandonment.

Galen dies from Krennic, not Alliance bombs. Shouldn’t ever be an assassination mission from the Alliance; Galen clearly has revealed plans of the weakness, showing his loyalty to the Alliance. Why kill him after the Death Star is already done?

More speech from her father, how he loved her, and he missed her.

Jyn tries to kill Krennic but is foiled; she flies into a fit of rage. The dark cloud that blind guys sees is her wanting to commit murder of Krennic. She is inconsolable after the death of her father and escape of Krennic.

She is driven by revenge and hatred to go to Scarif. They steal the transport as in the movie, and pilot it there. She is faced with either killing Krennic or sending the plans. She is on a suicide mission to hunt and kill Krennic; she wounds him but he escapes. She gives chase, leaving Cassian alone to steal the plans. Eventually she comes across a prison with the bodies of innocents killed because they didn’t talk. She turns over one, flashing back to the body of her mom, and breaks down. She realizes that her hatred is driving her away from doing what she needs to do. She composes herself and helps Cassian at the last minute to send the plans.

They send the plans on the tower, and remain there. Seems dumb that they managed to climb all the way down the tower, wounded, without being shot. Moments later, the Death Star fires the shot, causing the massive tsunami. As the tsunami approaches, Krennic boards his ship. It looks like he will escape again. Jyn and Cassian manage to turn off the Krennic’s ship’s power with the aid of a dying K-2SO (that wasn’t quite dead). Krennic is franic on his ship, trying to get away as he sees the massive wave. He looks up and sees Jyn looking down at him from the tower. He stares at her as she rolls on her back, wounded (she was shot, not Cassian). Cassian comforts her. She sees the Death Star, and the Alliance, knowing she played no small part in doing the right thing.

Then cut to the scene with the plans, R2-D2, Leia’s ship, etc.

Cut back to the shot of the Scarif sky with the battle overhead, Jyn no longer concerned with Krennic. Krennic is beating furiously at the window of his ship, staring at Jyn above, impotent to do anything. Cuts back to the Scarif sky, as we hear the furious sound of the tsunami approach with a crescendo...then crash and fade to black.

[librettooflife]

Meaning behind Star Wars VII

As dumb as Star Wars VIII was, JJ Abrams did try to inject some larger meaning into it. Just as Lucas “tried” to do with Nixon/Star Wars IV, Abrams injected current politics in the movie.

In a nutshell, the movie was about racial identity, police brutality, and gender relations.

Finn is a Black guy who has 2nd thoughts when seeing a village of innocent civilians be slaughtered mindlessly by Stormtroopers. He is in shock, and ultimately breaks free from his programming. Another Stormtrooper fights him on the planet when they capture Ray, calling him a “traitor”.

Look at the use of the modified nightstick that the Stormtrooper uses; it’s clear that Stormtroopers are supposed to be police. Abrams is positing that the police are brutal, programmed monsters, who must be stopped at all costs.

Kylo Ren’s character represents a fading white male culture, a shadow of its former glory. The usurpers in this case being a Black man, a woman, older white guys like Max von Sydow and Solo, and a Hispanic man (Poe) unite to undo the doings of Kylo Ren, lily white General Hux, and the other vestiges of white male power. The only good white male is passively on vacay standing on an island in the middle of nowhere.

Is it ham-handed? Yes. It’s raw-meat, absolutely devoid of nuance or real understanding.

Like Tarantino, Abrams stupidly portrays race relations as only to be solved via combat and death, a fantasy of mutual slaughter. This is the lowest base impulse of people that you disagree with, to kill them.

We are better than this, people.

[librettooflife]

Star Wars VII

Rating: B-

A very safe reboot of Star Wars IV: A New Hope. Way too repetitive, stupid plot.

Repetitive. Name the Star Wars movie that:

1 Starts in a battle in space (even with the camera panning down to reveal the Imperial ship)

2 A member of the Alliance gives some kind of plans to a droid

3 The droid lands on a desert planet

4 The droid finds a descendant of Jedis that somehow no one knew was there

5 Said burgeoning Jedi leaves the desert planet in the Millennium Falcon

6 They meet up with the Alliance / Leia

7 Alliance blows up the Death Star

Yeah you could say this about Star Wars IV or VII

WTF JJ Abrams. You guys had this long to write a new Star Wars, and it’s basically the same plot as Star Wars IV, but less enjoyable.

There was no drama, no suspense. Pretty boring actually. Worse than the prequels.

Plot problems:

1 It’s freakin’ stupid that Ray(sp?) and Finn are running from the Empire on the desert planet, and the Millennium Falcon happens to be sitting right there? That’s stupid.

2 They leave the planet, and who do they happen to meet? Han Solo, who had no clue where his ship was. Isn’t that kind of lucky? It’s mindblowingly stupid lucky.

3 The creature that got loose on the ship was dumb.

4 The pilot guy survived, but Finn didn’t see him? Dumb, it’s a desert where you could see for miles.

5 Some alien captured the BB-8 unit, and Ray said to let him go; and the guy just did. What the f was the point of that?

6 Kylo Ren was horribly weak. He had the ability in the beginning to STOP A LIGHT SABER BLAST MID-SHOT, but he can’t defeat Finn and a girl who has never been trained for even 5 minutes with a light saber. That’s stupid.

7 Luke is just standing on some island somewhere, when Ray sees him. Pointless.

Biggest problems of the movie was lack of a discernable arc for Ray, stupid plot holes and noticeable repetition.

Recommended plot changes:

1 Have Han Solo sacrifice himself for his son. The reactor becomes unstable and he pushes Ren to safety or whatever.

2 Ray should not be able to fight Kylo Ren solo, and w/o Jedi powers. Saving Finn with a light saber parry is fine, but that’s about all she could do.

3 Don’t have another gd Death Star. It’s too powerful, it’s dumb.

Not really looking forward to the next one. JJ Abrams has managed to screw the pooch on both Star Wars and Star Trek.

[librettooflife]

Hateful 8 is Horrible, Tarantino is an immature, sociopathic hack

Rating: D

Why is Tarantino considered an auteur? The guy is an idiot. His movies are devoid of anything except senseless killing. There is no emotion, drama, or comedy in any of his works.

Hateful 8 is just the latest example of this. “Filmed in Panavision” like a throwback Thursday, replete with dumb throwback 60s fonts. So this is supposed to be an homage to 60s / 70s Westerns.

Hateful 8 is a horrible movie. The gore is boring, the plot is ridiculous, the characters are like cartoon sketches from a 15 yo.

Kurt Russel’s mustache: ridiculous.

Everyone in Tarantino’s movies are violent sociopaths, or innocent dumbfuck rubes (like the store owner, the blond New Zealand lady, etc.). Tarantino’s “enlightened” views on race relations is simply murder, from whites or blacks. Tarantino’s ideas on gender relations is simply murder, from men or women. Jackson’s character has the white guy sucking his d**k to provoke Dern; what is the point of this sexualizing Black men yet again? Childish revenge, from the mind of a child. Is Tarantino the poster boy for effective race/gender relations in the country? The guy is an idiot. Would it be ok for that scene to be filmed with a Black guy doing the s***king, or a woman?

Look back at his movies, is there any real plot, any emotion at all? Senseless killing/violence that a sociopathic 15 yo would write. Kurt Russel breaks Jennifer Leigh’s nose, throws soup on her...this is just pointless gratuitous violence against women. Stupidity. Tarantino is stupid. Might as well show a character slowing torturing a dog.

Leigh’s character “deserves” her treatment because she’s a racist. This allows the audience to be ok with her torture. Russell’s character is stupid, therefore deserving of death. Everyone else is a racist or murderer. It’s like a bad horror flick, where only the virgin gets to escape alive. Everyone else is murdered for their “sins”.

He probably thinks he is progressive on race relations, but does he ever have a Black character express depth, or pain, or regret, or joy? No. They are just soulless killers like all the other idiots in his movies. Is this our solution to race in this country? A murderous race war? This is how we should solve racial problems, with murder? This is stupid.

The plot has a ton of holes: 1 Why did Jackson’s character AND the sheriff both end up on the same road, and they are BOTH excellent shots? That’s a stupid red herring/plot device to get them both into the cabin.

2 Why didn’t the 4 killers just kill Kurt Russel and co. immediately, at the same time like they did with Minnie and the other civilians? What was going to be their game plan given that either Russell and Jackson’s characters could be awake all the time?

3 Why poison the coffee? It clearly indicates that there is a murderer among them. You have at least 2 trigger-happy guys (Russell and Jackson), and you’re going to reveal that there is a murderer by poisoning coffee? That’s dumb.

4 Why didn’t Jackson just kill all of them except the sheriff (including Leigh) when he found out that the coffee was poisoned?

Tarantino’s characters are drawn from a cartoon/comic book; absolutely no depth, stupid dialogue, with absolutely no emotion. His characters are all soulless murderers; this is great for him as he doesn’t have to write any emotion into any of his movies; largely because he is unable to. He displays a secret desire to be racist / sexist, and he masks that with violence/racism from the character making it “ok” for him to express it.

Tarantino’s plots are stupid. They go nowhere, they make no sense, and have no drama in them. There is no emotion. Tarantino’s only desire in movies is to film death. His setup is too paint a character as racist, stupid, evil; then gleefully (look at the character’s smiles as they hang Leigh’s character) watch as that person is murdered.

It’s a sick fantasy from the mind of a disaffected 15 yo boy.

Tarantino uses stylistic camerawork and a self-imposed “coolness” to mask the fact that all of his movies are horrible.

[librettooflife]

Movie Review: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Solid B+.

Good action scenes, mostly coherent plot. Good use of redirection from Renner’s character and the heroine.

Problem: poor sound quality left some lines muddled.

Problem: they pulled the scene where Ethan takes a dive on his bike rather than hit the heroine from Casino Royale. Noticably.

Problem: it’s resolved a bit too early who the heroine is working for. Better to keep the audience in the dark the whole time.

Really big problem: anti-climactic ending. We’re seeing Ethan (Cruise) stare smugly into the camera as the bomb ticks down. He’s a gambler and is betting Lane will crack (he does). So...are we supposed to feel suspense because everyone else is? If the hero isn’t nervous, we’re not going to be. The scene completely lacked any sense of suspense; the scene where he was underwater did have suspense, was done well.

Rewrite: have Ethan be nervous, even a little, about the bomb ticking. Or he doesn’t know the real account number, was just stalling for time.

As for the heroine (Ilsa), what they should do is have her report to the antagonist (Lane) that she met with the head of MI6. That way, you’re not really sure if she is a double or a triple agent. You don’t know until the end where she stands, but he decides to trust her (correctly).

[librettooflife]

Movie Notes: Avengers 2

B-

Spader was a great Ultron. Bettany was a great Jarvis/Vision.

Liked the plot in general, but the glaring things wrong with it:

1 Soulless characters going through the motions.

2 Plot points that go nowhere.

By #1, I mean that the end scene is just all action w/o doing anything; it’s just a bunch of robots attacking them in slow-mo. This mimiced the slow-mo fight scene from the beginning. Robots piling up, but no real drama.

By #2...I mean the whole Scarlet Witch/navel gazing. During the midpoint, Hawkeye is the only one not “infected” with Scarlet Witch’s mind powers; his wife asks him if he’s sure they are on his side. This seems like an important plot point: can Hawkeye trust the team? Will their demons get the better of them.

And what happened to this very important plot point? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. It’s just mentioned at the farm house, and we have scenes of each character dealing with his/her demons. But nothing else happens. It doesn’t come back in the end, there is nothing to overcome. It just kind of fades away so we can deal with more robots.

This is what makes the movie really clunky and soulless; you’d think that there will be a test of loyalty, but there isn’t. The whole team fight together and they even add Scarlet Witch (Hawkeye’s little pep talk).

Oh, and I thought Scarlet Witch and Quiksilver HATED Tony Stark, it’s their ENTIRE REASON for working with Ultron. How did that get resolved? IT DIDN’T. It just faded away, unresolved. Yes they don’t want Ultron to kill everyone, but what about their hatred of Tony? Who knows.

Why the hell would you bring up plot points / motivations like that, just to see NOTHING happen with them?

It’s bad writing. Just dumb.

My revisions:

1 Everything the same happens, up to the last 30 minutes or so.

2 Scarlet Witch and bro don’t want to work with Ultron, but hate Tony too. Decide to go it alone. Tony gives speech that he’s out of the weapons biz, he’s trying  to pay for sins. She tries to kill Tony but is stopped by Captain America shield.

3 In town Scarlet Witch has a chance to kill Tony, who he thinks is trying to kill townspeople. Then she pauses, and sees he’s trying to save townspeople. He is getting shot/almost dying by robots, and Scarlet Witch / bro save Tony.

4 In town, the demons of everyone start coming up; they start losing focus, stop listening to the team, and start losing to the robots; Hawkeye gets worried the team will fall part. In each “dream”, a respected person tells them that there are things they need to fight for; they all snap out and unite in the center as the Avengers.

5 Ending is the same, couple of twists. One is that Hulk sees Romanoff, and he tries to calm himself by touching his arm/hand like she does. He misses her, but is resolute to be alone. Second is that Scarlet Witch + Thor + Vision + Iron Man is needed to stop the floating city. Scarlet Witch comes at the end, still heartbroken over the loss of her bro but does her duty.

[librettooflife]

Movie notes: Fantastic Four (2015)

Rating: C+

Why it was horrible: dumb plot points that went nowhere, horrible pacing, extraneous/poorly sketched characters.

Dumb: too clearly trying to play up to Millenials (yeah we screwed up the world, but only YOU YOUNG PEOPLE CAN SAVE US!)

Dumb: they sitting there welding this thing together. Like what, ran out of workers so they all had to pitch in? “You know how to weld?” “Sure I do”. Dumb.

The major thing wrong with the movie was that the exposition was WAY too long, leading the rest of the movie to be squeezed into a small amount of screen time.

Did we need them at the science fair, Reed at school at Career Day, looooong scene at the junkyard, them in the garage, scene walking into the building, scene looking out the window? These all need to be cut or shortened, to heighten the action. Who does the writer think he is, Mamet? Besides, their friendship IS NOT ADDRESSED AT ALL. You bring up this plot point of a tight bond, but Ben/Thing is pissed at Reed, then...STAYS PISSED. It’s not even addressed in the movie AT ALL, there is no reconciliation, no dealing with the friendship. THEN WHY HAVE THIS TIGHT FRIENDSHIP BE BROUGHT UP IF YOU AREN’T GOING TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT? You know what movie did that well, the friendship thing? Captain America. It came full circle at the end of the 2nd one, was well done.

The whole thing of Reed leaving, with Ben then being used as a weapon, was dumb. Totally meaningless. I mean, Reed runs away to create a new teleporter, then...Sue/Invisible Woman finds him...just so he can FINISH THE OTHER TELEPORTER. What the hell was the point of him leaving, story-wise? Nothing.

Ben could have been rightly pissed at Reed just for turning him into the Thin, since everyone else appeared human; of course that was played up the LAST FF movie too.

When they first went to the planet, Viktor clearly said that the planet energy was alive; but what came of that, story-wise? Nothing.

And Viktor/Dr. Doom is so powerful as to create this huge energy beam, move rocks, etc. but he can’t fly out of the beam itself when they push him in it? Dumb.

The dad’s reactions were horrible (actor was good, script was dumb). “I just want to see my kids, is that ok?” WHAT? How about “I WANT TO SEE MY KIDS RIGHT NOW!!!” Then he sheepishly works on the portal, because he has no choice? Makes no sense. Dumb.

Where were the scenes from the trailer? Thing falling from a plane, clobbering stuff? Don’t remember seeing that.

But back to the length: the ending was way too rushed and didn’t make sense. 1) Why was the planet scarred/lifeless? I’m assuming that Viktor absorbed all the power on the entire planet (?), but it’s unclear. Reed just said it looked “different”, but we don’t know why. Rewrite? 2) Why was he converting all of Earth’s matter to energy? Was this recharging the planet that he sucked dry? Don’t know.

So the fight scene: they try attacking him one at a time Bruce Lee-style, and fail; “He’s too strong for us”, Reed: “but not together”. That was the same exact line as the LAST FF. But...it was WAY WORSE because it was like 1 second later. That’s a horrible story structure; the point of no return is supposed to be the low point before the climax. In this movie, it’s literally 3 seconds long, and then Reed has the brilliant idea of attacking at the same time/problem solved. Heroes are supposed to WORK for the solution, they are supposed to be brought low to climb back up. When the action was over, I thought that was the midpoint, not the climax.

And Viktor/Dr. Doom is so powerful as to create this huge energy beam, move rocks, etc. but he can’t fly out of the beam itself? Dumb.

What should have happened:

1 Cut the long expositions

2 Cut the whole evil government/corporation thing, it’s dumb and adds nothing. Don’t need Thing as a pawn, or Human Torch as a willing pawn. Adds 0 to the story, makes no sense.

3 Keep the explosion that strands Doom/Viktor. But Viktor sends an SOS message that they receive. Ben/Thing is angry at Reed, can’t accept who he is. Can be an analogy for being gay; where no one accepts him, he feels like an outsider, people tease him, he doesn’t belong.

4 Reed and team work furiously to rebuild the machine to rescue their buddy. But when they get there, Doom has used up all the energy of the planet and wants more (from Earth). The SOS was a ruse, he uses the portal.  

5 Reed and team don’t kill Doom, escape back to Earth; Doom lets them go because of Sue. But during the fight, no one protected each other, they were all on their own.They are wounded, they feel defeated, and dispirited. Sue is reticent, Ben is still angry at Reed, Johnny is selfish/doesn’t care. This is their point of no return, their low. Reed gives a speech that makes them think, how we wanted to make the world a better place, it wasn’t about fame. Reed starts working on an unknown device.

6 Reed attempts to close the portal, Doom comes through to destroy them. This time, Ben saves Reed by taking a direct energy blast. Everyone in the team is united, and they all shield Reed while he finishes his device. He just asks for more time, Doom is attacking all of them. Reed finishes the device, which he fires at Doom. Reed explains that Viktor has saturated his body with the energy, and he just gave it a little more energy that would cause it to separate from his cells. The blast separates most of the energy from the planet from Viktor’s body, where it disappears into the portal; leaving Viktor here weakened, still retaining a bunch of power, but able to be overpowered by the team. In the denouement, Ben tries the device on himself, but Reed says it won’t work on him because we have too little of that energy inside us; but he’ll keep working on a cure. Ben says “you know what, I’m ok with it”.

In their father’s will, they get the (abandoned) research facility and a bunch of money, not the government’s facility (also dumb part of the movie). The 4 are seen using their powers to build up the building themselves.

[librettooflife]

Movie Notes: Girl w/Dragon Tattoo

Rating: B

Could be a much more powerful story, but there were some significant issues. This likely was the cause of the movie bombing, whereas the book could be more ponderous.

1 Repetitive. Lisbeth is violently raped by a sadist, then the next day is picked up to work on a case...involving rape (and murder) by a violent sadist. But she wasn’t picked because of her past, and she didn’t choose the case; the lawyer picked her. Would have been much better if she sought out the case, OR her rape was a flashback caused by working with the case.

2 Early exposition. The first time Mikael (Craig) meets Henrik (Plummer), he spouts out all how disturbed everyone is in the family, and how he KNOWS someone in the family killed Harriet. But by doing that so early, it takes away suspense. Would have been much better to present a happy facade, and then have Mikael/Craig DISCOVER their Nazi, drunk, abusive past as they went.

3 Didn’t make sense. Mikael STRONGLY SUSPECTS that Martin is the killer; has a knife, leaves the place, then comes back in for a drink? Even after Martin explains it’s polite, that’s just stupid. Mikael KNOWS that the killer is a psychotic, why can’t he just say “thanks for the invite, but need to make a call” or whatever. It’s the killer’s HOUSE, Mikael is unfamiliar with it.

4 Didn’t make sense. Dead cat in a Nazi symbol, shot at...why is Mikael staying for this? He can get another job somewhere else, is it worth his life for a cold case 40 years ago?

5 Didn’t make sense. Also...why would Martin even do those things? MARTIN DID NOT KILL Harriet! She never died at all. Since Mikael was investigating the murder of Harriet, why would Martin care about his investigations? He certainly can lay low on his own murders while Mikael is in town, and it seemed like he wanted Mikael to investigate Harriet more than anyone to find out what happened to her (so he could continue to rape her?). He advocated for access against the lawyer’s wishes, ostensibly so Mikael would discover who Harriet’s killer was. So why would he want to kill Martin? Doesn’t...make...sense.

6 Wrong order. In the movie, Mikael finds that Martin is a killer, while at the same time Lisbeth finds that Gottfried (Martin’s father) was the killer as well. But why not reverse it? Would make more sense for #3 above for Mikael going into Martin’s house if: Mikael discovers that Gottfried was the killer, and LISBETH discovers Martin is the killer.

7 Sex. Mikael didn’t need to have sex with her. He knows she is damaged, and even (especially) after being in shock after being shot, shouldn’t have had sex with her. That could have been a cause for her crush: an honorable man that doesn’t just see her as a sex object. I mean...there is no sexual tension or romance, they just coldly have sex after he is shot. Not necessary.

8 Doesn’t make sense. Harriet became a public-facing investment banker. No one ever Googled her and saw from her face that it’s actually Harriet, not her cousin (Anita) that she was pretending to be? And Anita died in a car crash, but no one bothered to figure out/contact the family that it was her? That’s dumb.

What should have happened:Lisbeth advocates for herself/helps out Mikael after SHE discovers that he is investigating a murderer of women; the rape was years ago, which she has flashbacks of. At the end, Lisbeth and Mikael both agree that Gottfried was the killer of the women in the 40s-60s. Mikael gets invited to dinner or something with Martin, or maybe goes out for smokes or something. Martin invites Mikael for dinner, Mikael tells Martin what he found, where Martin appears contrite for his father’s sordid past (Martin: ”Good thing we learn how to deal with women fairly in the New Sweden”.) Martin drugs Mikael. Lisbeth sees a discrepancy where they put in the wrong date of death for the last victim, meaning that the father couldn’t have been the killer. She then pieces together the fact that Martin is the new killer, and then finds/rescues Mikael and the ending continues as it was.

[librettooflife]

For me, it was too jarring/didn't jive with the rest of the seasons:

http://librettooflife.tumblr.com/post/99151507277/how-i-met-your-mother-alt-alt-series-finale

HIMYM

Finally finished HIMYM and I’m not sure how I feel about the ending…

[librettooflife]

Sometimes it’s best to pretend the show ended before the series finale

Fans everywhere (via gaamoraa)

The content of the finale wasn't the issue, it was just too jarring for what the writers were leading up to.

This would have made more sense:

http://librettooflife.tumblr.com/post/99151507277/how-i-met-your-mother-alt-alt-series-finale

[librettooflife]

I am a fan of HIMYM, think it’s a great sitcom. Very rare to have a solid sitcom, even in Season 9. Which is why the series finale is all the more puzzling. In Season 9, the show creators spend the entire season:

1 Building up to Ted/Tracy (the mom), including flash-forwards of their great...

[librettooflife]

Agree completely, not enough transition time for such a radical departure from all 9 seasons.  I have an alt alt ending that wouldn't have been perfect, but possibly a more realistic season 9.

http://librettooflife.tumblr.com/post/99151507277/how-i-met-your-mother-alt-alt-series-finale

"Dear How I Met Your Mother Creators,To say I was disappointed in the series finale of How I Met Your Mother is a gross understatement. I am disconcertingly, irretrievably, unfathomably disappointed in the way you chose to end what used to be my absolute favorite television series of...

[librettooflife]

Alt alt series finale.  http://librettooflife.tumblr.com/post/99151507277/how-i-met-your-mother-alt-alt-series-finale

HIMYM finale reviews